TWA Flight 847

Trans World Airlines Flight 847 was a flight from Cairo to San Diego with en route stops in Athens, Rome, Boston, and Los Angeles. On the morning of June 14, 1985, Flight 847 was hijacked shortly after take off from Athens. The hijackers demanded the release of 700 Shia Muslims from Israeli custody and took the plane repeatedly to Beirut and Algiers.Smith, William E. June 24, 2001
Terror Aboard Flight 847
''TIME Magazine.'' Retrieved: 24 November 2012. Later Western analysis considered them members of the Hezbollah group, an allegation Hezbollah rejects.

The passengers and crew endured a three-day intercontinental ordeal. Some passengers were threatened and some beaten. Passengers with Jewish-sounding names were separated from the others. United States Navy diver Robert Stethem. Dozens of passengers were held hostage over the next two weeks until released by their captors after some of their demands were met.

Hijacking events

Flight 847 was operated with a Boeing 727-200, registration The flight originated in Cairo on the morning of June 14. After an uneventful flight from Cairo to Athens, a new crew boarded Flight 847. The new crew in Athens were Captain John Testrake, First Officer Phil Maresca, Flight Engineer Christian Zimmerman, flight service manager Uli Derickson, and flight attendants Judy Cox, Hazel Hesp, Elizabeth Howes, and Helen Sheahan.See ''Hostage in a Hostage World: Hope aboard Hijacked TWA 847'' (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1985) for Zimmermann's account of this experience.

At 10:10, Flight 847 departed Athens for Rome. It was hijacked shortly after takeoff by two Arabic-speaking Lebanese men who had smuggled a pistol and two grenades through the Athens airport security. One was later identified as Mohammed Ali Hamadi, who was eventually captured and sentenced to life imprisonment in Germany. Hamadi is an alleged member of Hezbollah.

The hijackers assaulted Derickson, breaching the cockpit and dragging her with them before attacking and pistol-whipping Testrake, Maresca, and Zimmerman.

To Beirut, then Algiers

With Captain Testrake being held at gunpoint, the plane was diverted from its original destination of Rome, in airspace over Greece, to the Middle East and made its first stop, for several hours, at the Beirut International Airport in Lebanon, where 19 passengers were allowed to leave in exchange for fuel. Shortly before landing, air traffic control initially refused to let them land in Beirut. Captain Testrake argued with air traffic control until they relented. He said at one point, "He has pulled a hand-grenade pin and he is ready to blow up the aircraft if he has to. We must, I repeat, we must land at Beirut. We must land at Beirut. No alternative."

At the time, Lebanon was in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, and Beirut was divided into sectors controlled by different Shia Amal militia and Hezbollah. That afternoon, the aircraft continued on across the Mediterranean to Algiers, where 20 passengers were released during a five-hour stop before heading back to Beirut that night.

Back to Beirut

Beirut International Airport was surrounded by a Shia neighborhood. It had no perimeter security and had been overrun by Islamist militias, and nearby residents could simply drive onto the runway.

The hijackers had systematically and regularly beaten all the military passengers, but during this stop, they selected U.S. Navy diver, Robert Stethem

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